‘Call My Agent!’ & ‘High Intellectual Potential’ Drive Top Year For French Drama Sales – Report

EXCLUSIVE: Call My Agent! and High Intellectual Potential (HIP) drove a top year for French scripted format sales last year, according to K7 Media’s latest Tracking the Scripted Giants report.

The two big hits, the latter of which recently launched Stateside, were sold three times each last year, landing them joint second in the top scripted formats sales chart behind only Doctor Foster, as analysis firm K7 once again crunched the numbers.

Call My Agent!, which launched on France 2 a decade ago and has been picked up by Netflix globally, is a formattable concept about the world of glitzy agencies that has now sold to the likes of the UK, Italy and Canada. TF1’s High Intellectual Potential about an intellectually gifted housekeeper who becomes a consultant for the serious crime division of the police has sold to the Czech Republic, Greece and Hungary. Drew Goddard helmed an ABC version titled High Potential that launched last month to good ratings and the creative team behind the series told us last year that they felt this would propel HIP to a “global brand.”

Other formats to find success according to K7 included Korean supernatural detective series Signal (CJ ENM), Argentine parenting comedy Dear Daddies (Paramount Global Content Distribution) and British mystery thriller Liar (All3Media International). All three have launched two new adaptations apiece during the period covered, which was early 2023 to summer 2024.

This year’s report also highlighted a significant rise in Asian and Middle Eastern buyers, with Thailand emerging as the leading buyer of scripted formats, primarily driven by collaborations with South Korea’s CJ ENM. The latter is highlighted in the report as the most successful current distributor of scripted formats. The shift reflects a growing interest in genre hybrids, including romance and family dramas, which are gaining traction in these regions.

Richard O’Meara, Associate Director: Drama and Insight at K7 Media, said: “The market may have contracted, but the diversity of scripted formats crossing borders is remarkable. Audiences continue to gravitate toward character-driven stories, be they domestic thrillers like Doctor Foster or comedic explorations of the entertainment industry like Call My Agent!.”

“As the TV industry navigates ongoing challenges, the ability of these formats to transcend cultural boundaries is a testament to their universal appeal,” he added.

K7’s similar unscripted report published at the final ever MIPTV six months ago found that The Traitors had unseated The Masked Singer as the biggest-selling global format.